RokJok
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2000
- Messages
- 4,094
Specs
-----------------------------
Length OAL: 9 inches (22 cm)
Length Blade: approx 4-3/8 inches (11 cm)
Length Handle: 4-3/4 inches (12 cm)
Blade thickness: 3/16" stock
Handle: 3/4" thick side-to-side, 1-3/8" tall edge-to-spine at ricasso
Weight knife: 7.5 oz
Weight knife + sheath: 11 oz
Balance point: right at the front bolt (middle of finger index groove), this yields a very neutral balance for this knife in the hand
Blade steel: A2 tool steel, Paul Bos heat-treat
Blade coating: Kal-Guard IIRC
Handle: grayish canvas micarta
Acquisition
-----------------------------
I picked up this Sharp Thing II (ST2) from Brian Wagner at the Blade West Show a month ago. Brian is Oku here on BFC and the man behind Okuden Kydex sheaths. His sheaths are famous for having extremely high fit & finish and the distinct "click" you get as your knife hits home upon resheathing it. A consideration in buying a knife from Brian is that you get one of his killer sheaths with the blade, thereby reducing the effective price of the blade itself by about sixty bucks or so. The sheath that came with my ST2 is one of his standard sheaths with a Blade-Tech large size Tek-Lok.
The knives I saw on his table at Blade West lacked the spit 'n polish precision and finish I've always found in his sheaths. The knives were what I would consider "working man" knives. Not fancy or dressy. Basic, plain-Jane, sturdy blades that looked like they were itching for a tough day in the field (military or farm, either one). "Rugged & Tough" was the over-riding impression of them.
Work/Testing
-----------------------------
Cutting down a small alder tree
While the knife still had its original edge, I hauled it out to the back yard to chop down and cut up a small alder tree that is one of a stand that needs thinning. I knew this was a bit of an unfair workout for the ST II. Its size, weight (or lack thereof), and balance dictate its role as a small slicer/dicer, not as a chopper. But I intended to see what the little bugger could do, so he was running solo on this job, come what may.
The tree I picked out was 1.5"-2" across at the trunk where I set about chopping it off a bit above the ground. I used alternating sets of upward and downward chopping strokes to cut out a horizontal V-shaped notch (standard way to down a tree). The wood was green, so quite susceptible to penetration by the knife edge. However, the ST2 didn't have much weight for the chore, nor weight-forward nose heaviness to get much oomph into each stroke. Nonetheless, due to the sharp edge Brian had on it, the ST2 bit in surprisingly well considering its limitations, especially into the outer sapwood of the alder. When I got into the heartwood, progress slowed because I was now working through the maximum diameter of the trunk, the chips flew out seldomer & were smaller, and the chopping became more a process of dogged chipping away at the tree.
I timed the downing of the tree and it only took me 4.5 minutes of what I would call leisurely but persistent chopping with the ST2 to chop the tree down. I made a point of continuing to chop until the tree was completely severed through, holding it up with my free hand until the end. Had I simply wanted to down the tree by bending it over and chopping through the strained fibers or by breaking it off, I could have been done in literally a couple of minutes.
After chopping down the alder the knife edge showed no wear or dulling. Except for the smudged juice on the coating, it was NIB condition.
After downing the tree I used the ST2 to remove and lop up the branches into short (6"-ish) sections. I did the same with some old dried small pine branches that were on the laying on the compost pile. The ST2 had no trouble with any of the branch sectioning, although it tended to skate out of the very thin pine branches after initially digging in. I think this is due to my technique of holding branches in my off hand far enough away from the point of impact that my fingers never get within about a foot or so of the approaching edge. On thin branches, this gives them a long enough moment arm to spring pretty readily from the fulcrum of my holding hand. So the angle of the branch relative to the edge changed during the course of the stroke due to the edge pushing against the branch, even as it was cutting into it. At any rate, after the sectioning the knife still looked pristine.
Next I took the butt section of the alder trunk (about 18" long) and used the ST2 to slice the bark off in long strips. Then to remove the last of the cambium that was stuck to the sapwood, I turned the blade perpendicular to the trunk and scraped the wood clean. I got some chattering corrugation of the wood where the grain changed direction around knots.
This kind of scraping applies maximum lateral pressure right at the edge. If the edge was inclined to chip, this would be the time for it to happen. The worst was around the knots in the alder where the edge scraping along the wood would jump and chatter on the changing direction of the wood grain. Those jumps and jamming stops being applied in lateral opposition to the edge weren't doing anything good to the knife. But the edge looked fine, even after this rather rude treatment. It was only a bit dirty and gunked up from the cambium scraping. It was as sharp as ever from what I could tell testing the edge with the ball of my thumb. This is the point at which I took the picture above of the uncleaned knife and the butt of the alder trunk section where I chopped it off.
Kitchen duty
A few days later, I brought the ST2 into the kitchen on knife-sharpening day. (Every day is sharpening day, right?
) I wanted to begin thinning out the edge on the ST2, so I gave it a round of stroking on a very coarse round rod sharpener that feels like 100 grit or something nasty like that. This brought the edge down to a very ragged toothiness. My inconsistent attention on the butcher's steel shaped rod sharpener also scratched up the blade coating some, as seen in the picture above. It's a good thing I bought this one as a user, because the uglification got started with that rough session on the coarse rod. 
I found the A2 steel in the ST2 responded well to relatively heavy pressure and the very coarse abrasive.
After achieving the ragged tooth on the edge, I gave the blade a couple dozen or so licks on a smooth ceramic rod that is also shaped like a butcher's steel. I have no idea what final angle I wound up with, but it's more acute than original and I'll keep reducing it more over time. Normally I'd have used my Edge-Pro to profile the edge with a higher degree of precision and maybe a Spydie Sharpmaker for finishing. But they are both in one of the not-yet-unpacked boxes in my garage.
So I used what I had at hand.
When I was done with the smoother ceramic rod I tested the ST2 edge by slicing up some newsprint. Piece of cake!!! Little bitty slivers of grocery ad all over the floor. :thumbup:
I figured I would see how the ST2 would do on kitchen chores, so I put it to slicing a cucumber. Cukes are an easy test because they are pretty rigid. However, they and other relatively crunchy veggies can be a problem for cutting with thicker blades, which can get to wedging the material apart more than actually cutting it. I consider the 3/16" stock of the ST2 to be about maximum thickness for kitchen duty. Most of my kitchen blades are from less than 1/16" thick up to somewhere shy of 1/8". Usually, the thinner they are, the better I like 'em.
But I digress. Back to the ST2 and the cucumber... I took some thin slices off the cuke, trying for as transparent a slice as possible. After less than a half dozen slices to get the feel of the blade in the material, I got the slice shown in the picture above. I am sure that if I had persisted with the ST2, I could have gotten an even thinner slice, since the edge was working so well. But I figure the slice above is thin enough for practical purposes.
I next took off a thick slice of cucumber in the 1/2" range. This would show if the blade was too thick for slicing and tended to wedge the flesh of the cuke apart. The slice went well, with the edge of the ST2 staying in consistent contact with the material being cut. What wedging of the material occured didn't overwhelm the cutting action of the edge.
But cukes are easy. On to the tough one.... a tomato.
I found a tomato half that had been in the fridge for a couple of days. This meant that it had dehydrated a bit through the open face of the hemisphere and was a bit squishier than the whole tomatos in there with it. So I put the squishy tomato half face-down on the cutting board and tried to get as thin a slice as possible with the ST2. The result is seen in the picture above... an extremely thin slice of tomato. The picture really doesn't give much of an impression of how slim that slice was in real life. (Sorry, blame the photographer. ) The tomato slice came out much thinner to my eye than the cucumber slice.
Anyway, I recommend you look to Okuden for hard-use knives, as well as for his world-class sheaths.
(edit to add) I completely forgot about the dang blackberries! After I was done with the alder session, I discovered a few blackberries sprouting in a shady spot under some evergreen trees. So I used the ST2 to cut the roots underground when I couldn't unzip them from the ground any further. I then used the knife to whack the stalks into little chunks on top of the compost pile. I figured they'll be dried up good 'n dead in a couple days. The knife worked equally well at this light slicing/chopping as for the thin alder and pine branches. The underground cutoff work was rather rude, since our ground is stony & gravelly. But it didn't seem to bother the ST2 a lick.
I hope to update this report over time as I continue to work with the ST2.
-----------------------------
Length OAL: 9 inches (22 cm)
Length Blade: approx 4-3/8 inches (11 cm)
Length Handle: 4-3/4 inches (12 cm)
Blade thickness: 3/16" stock
Handle: 3/4" thick side-to-side, 1-3/8" tall edge-to-spine at ricasso
Weight knife: 7.5 oz
Weight knife + sheath: 11 oz
Balance point: right at the front bolt (middle of finger index groove), this yields a very neutral balance for this knife in the hand
Blade steel: A2 tool steel, Paul Bos heat-treat
Blade coating: Kal-Guard IIRC
Handle: grayish canvas micarta
Acquisition
-----------------------------
I picked up this Sharp Thing II (ST2) from Brian Wagner at the Blade West Show a month ago. Brian is Oku here on BFC and the man behind Okuden Kydex sheaths. His sheaths are famous for having extremely high fit & finish and the distinct "click" you get as your knife hits home upon resheathing it. A consideration in buying a knife from Brian is that you get one of his killer sheaths with the blade, thereby reducing the effective price of the blade itself by about sixty bucks or so. The sheath that came with my ST2 is one of his standard sheaths with a Blade-Tech large size Tek-Lok.
The knives I saw on his table at Blade West lacked the spit 'n polish precision and finish I've always found in his sheaths. The knives were what I would consider "working man" knives. Not fancy or dressy. Basic, plain-Jane, sturdy blades that looked like they were itching for a tough day in the field (military or farm, either one). "Rugged & Tough" was the over-riding impression of them.
Work/Testing
-----------------------------
Cutting down a small alder tree
While the knife still had its original edge, I hauled it out to the back yard to chop down and cut up a small alder tree that is one of a stand that needs thinning. I knew this was a bit of an unfair workout for the ST II. Its size, weight (or lack thereof), and balance dictate its role as a small slicer/dicer, not as a chopper. But I intended to see what the little bugger could do, so he was running solo on this job, come what may.
The tree I picked out was 1.5"-2" across at the trunk where I set about chopping it off a bit above the ground. I used alternating sets of upward and downward chopping strokes to cut out a horizontal V-shaped notch (standard way to down a tree). The wood was green, so quite susceptible to penetration by the knife edge. However, the ST2 didn't have much weight for the chore, nor weight-forward nose heaviness to get much oomph into each stroke. Nonetheless, due to the sharp edge Brian had on it, the ST2 bit in surprisingly well considering its limitations, especially into the outer sapwood of the alder. When I got into the heartwood, progress slowed because I was now working through the maximum diameter of the trunk, the chips flew out seldomer & were smaller, and the chopping became more a process of dogged chipping away at the tree.
I timed the downing of the tree and it only took me 4.5 minutes of what I would call leisurely but persistent chopping with the ST2 to chop the tree down. I made a point of continuing to chop until the tree was completely severed through, holding it up with my free hand until the end. Had I simply wanted to down the tree by bending it over and chopping through the strained fibers or by breaking it off, I could have been done in literally a couple of minutes.
After chopping down the alder the knife edge showed no wear or dulling. Except for the smudged juice on the coating, it was NIB condition.
After downing the tree I used the ST2 to remove and lop up the branches into short (6"-ish) sections. I did the same with some old dried small pine branches that were on the laying on the compost pile. The ST2 had no trouble with any of the branch sectioning, although it tended to skate out of the very thin pine branches after initially digging in. I think this is due to my technique of holding branches in my off hand far enough away from the point of impact that my fingers never get within about a foot or so of the approaching edge. On thin branches, this gives them a long enough moment arm to spring pretty readily from the fulcrum of my holding hand. So the angle of the branch relative to the edge changed during the course of the stroke due to the edge pushing against the branch, even as it was cutting into it. At any rate, after the sectioning the knife still looked pristine.
Next I took the butt section of the alder trunk (about 18" long) and used the ST2 to slice the bark off in long strips. Then to remove the last of the cambium that was stuck to the sapwood, I turned the blade perpendicular to the trunk and scraped the wood clean. I got some chattering corrugation of the wood where the grain changed direction around knots.
This kind of scraping applies maximum lateral pressure right at the edge. If the edge was inclined to chip, this would be the time for it to happen. The worst was around the knots in the alder where the edge scraping along the wood would jump and chatter on the changing direction of the wood grain. Those jumps and jamming stops being applied in lateral opposition to the edge weren't doing anything good to the knife. But the edge looked fine, even after this rather rude treatment. It was only a bit dirty and gunked up from the cambium scraping. It was as sharp as ever from what I could tell testing the edge with the ball of my thumb. This is the point at which I took the picture above of the uncleaned knife and the butt of the alder trunk section where I chopped it off.
Kitchen duty
A few days later, I brought the ST2 into the kitchen on knife-sharpening day. (Every day is sharpening day, right?
) I wanted to begin thinning out the edge on the ST2, so I gave it a round of stroking on a very coarse round rod sharpener that feels like 100 grit or something nasty like that. This brought the edge down to a very ragged toothiness. My inconsistent attention on the butcher's steel shaped rod sharpener also scratched up the blade coating some, as seen in the picture above. It's a good thing I bought this one as a user, because the uglification got started with that rough session on the coarse rod. I found the A2 steel in the ST2 responded well to relatively heavy pressure and the very coarse abrasive.After achieving the ragged tooth on the edge, I gave the blade a couple dozen or so licks on a smooth ceramic rod that is also shaped like a butcher's steel. I have no idea what final angle I wound up with, but it's more acute than original and I'll keep reducing it more over time. Normally I'd have used my Edge-Pro to profile the edge with a higher degree of precision and maybe a Spydie Sharpmaker for finishing. But they are both in one of the not-yet-unpacked boxes in my garage.
So I used what I had at hand.When I was done with the smoother ceramic rod I tested the ST2 edge by slicing up some newsprint. Piece of cake!!! Little bitty slivers of grocery ad all over the floor. :thumbup:
I figured I would see how the ST2 would do on kitchen chores, so I put it to slicing a cucumber. Cukes are an easy test because they are pretty rigid. However, they and other relatively crunchy veggies can be a problem for cutting with thicker blades, which can get to wedging the material apart more than actually cutting it. I consider the 3/16" stock of the ST2 to be about maximum thickness for kitchen duty. Most of my kitchen blades are from less than 1/16" thick up to somewhere shy of 1/8". Usually, the thinner they are, the better I like 'em.
But I digress. Back to the ST2 and the cucumber... I took some thin slices off the cuke, trying for as transparent a slice as possible. After less than a half dozen slices to get the feel of the blade in the material, I got the slice shown in the picture above. I am sure that if I had persisted with the ST2, I could have gotten an even thinner slice, since the edge was working so well. But I figure the slice above is thin enough for practical purposes.
I next took off a thick slice of cucumber in the 1/2" range. This would show if the blade was too thick for slicing and tended to wedge the flesh of the cuke apart. The slice went well, with the edge of the ST2 staying in consistent contact with the material being cut. What wedging of the material occured didn't overwhelm the cutting action of the edge.
But cukes are easy. On to the tough one.... a tomato.
I found a tomato half that had been in the fridge for a couple of days. This meant that it had dehydrated a bit through the open face of the hemisphere and was a bit squishier than the whole tomatos in there with it. So I put the squishy tomato half face-down on the cutting board and tried to get as thin a slice as possible with the ST2. The result is seen in the picture above... an extremely thin slice of tomato. The picture really doesn't give much of an impression of how slim that slice was in real life. (Sorry, blame the photographer.
) The tomato slice came out much thinner to my eye than the cucumber slice.Anyway, I recommend you look to Okuden for hard-use knives, as well as for his world-class sheaths.
(edit to add) I completely forgot about the dang blackberries! After I was done with the alder session, I discovered a few blackberries sprouting in a shady spot under some evergreen trees. So I used the ST2 to cut the roots underground when I couldn't unzip them from the ground any further. I then used the knife to whack the stalks into little chunks on top of the compost pile. I figured they'll be dried up good 'n dead in a couple days. The knife worked equally well at this light slicing/chopping as for the thin alder and pine branches. The underground cutoff work was rather rude, since our ground is stony & gravelly. But it didn't seem to bother the ST2 a lick.
I hope to update this report over time as I continue to work with the ST2.
